Integrating drill and blast reconciliation

This article outlines key factors for mining companies to consider when choosing a system to manage and reconcile their drill and blast process.

Traditional static drill and blast systems create a large overhead for engineers to collate, review and manipulate the data needed for effective blast design. Errors easily creep in, and grow in size and complexity when left unchecked in spreadsheet-based systems. More concerning, the consequences can be expensive. Difficulties in understanding the root cause of issues can also lead to division between functional departments.

In contrast, immediate access to operational data through intelligent interfaces with drill navigation and field tablets brings all of the site teams involved in drill and blast into alignment.

An integrated blast accuracy management system allows teams to harness that data to identify problem holes and quickly manage exceptions. The ability to update plans on the fly without interrupting or frustrating the blast crew is another win for fast-paced production environments where every minute counts.

Fig. 1: An integrated approach to tracking performance of all the factors in drill and blast enables true reconciliation.

When all the data associated with the blast is stored centrally, and is accessible by multiple sites and users, handover of technical tasks or sharing of information between geology, mine planning, geotechnical, survey and operations is transparent and seamless.

Control and standardisation of the drill and blast process is key in adopting a modern system.

Choosing a technology partner

Miners generally have three options when implementing new applications for managing aspects of their business:

Assign personnel and financial resources to develop the tools in-house.

Review available technology and choose an application that handles the immediate need.

Review current mining offerings and select a technical solution that meets long-term needs.

The downside of the first two options may not immediately be apparent. Developing tools in-house can be costly, particularly for organisations whose core business is mining, not software development. Some companies have started creating their own applications, only to get deep into the project and implementation to discover the expertise required to build, implement and maintain software systems is beyond their capability. If application development is outsourced, then the implementation and maintenance phase can become cumbersome and costly. Calling on outside expertise every time the application requires tweaking or customisation will likely be expensive and unworkable in the long term.

Fig. 2: Workflow diagram of solutions that work across the mining digital data ecosystem.

The second option, choosing an agnostic tech provider, is a hot topic in mining. Rising commodity prices and demand, and a matching optimism not seen for several years have attracted many technology providers, regardless of industry base or experience, to turn their attention to the mining market. Understandably, they have decided it is a good time to promote their wares to efficiency-hungry mining organisations. In the short term, these techies will be very keen to service the mining sector with agile apps that have likely been honed on challenges in different industries. The downsides are many: when the market dips they may exit the mining sector for more profitable markets, or no longer be interested in maintaining or supporting customer installations. Critically, without a true understand of mining, they are not able to add value to developed applications nor understand the wider solution needed to support daily mining operations.

The third and final option is probably the most successful long-term solution. Technology providers who have started out, grown and struggled alongside their mining customers have an inherent understanding of the practicalities and economics of mining. Development in collaboration with industry means readiness to respond to requests, such as configurations for site-specific databases.

Mining companies value a system which links design to geology for example. This enables side-by-side comparison of multiple design scenarios and informs decision-making at critical stages that influence cost, productivity and safety. Mining tech providers understand that miners need short term as well as life-of-mine support systems. They are not going to disappear when times are tough, and having pioneered a methodology will not walk away from continuing to refine the technology.

Clearly it is not only the boom years when fit-for-purpose technology is warranted. Miners have a need for technology partners during lean times – they need smart systems which allow them to be as profitable as possible by getting the ore out of the ground at the lowest cost. In boom times, these same systems need to allow miners to work efficiently and productively to deliver as much product to the market as possible.

Dedicated and successful mining technology providers can partner with miners to deliver solutions that work across their digital data ecosystem. Understanding that professional teams need solutions that can be relied on and that require expert input while easing the burden of manual data handling, leads to intuitive systems that avoid the black-box approach. Calculations and data chains are transparent, which is critical for management and boards to be able to report accurate, reliable and auditable data to their shareholders.

Why manage drill and blast holistically?

Drill and blast processes are typically one of the most expensive, and yet hardest to measure and audit activities for mine operations.

Fig. 3: Comparing actuals against design, and drilling data to surveyed holes improves knowledge of site conditions and material behaviour.

Poor drilling route allocation, operational losses through rough estimations of drilling length, load design, reporting and control are frequent challenges for drill and blast teams. Therefore, a blast accuracy and reconciliation system that tracks performance increases equipment productivity and reduces drill and blast costs in an integrated approach and offers more than the sum of these parts as individual applications.

Mining technology providers will also bring knowledge of the data available from processes upstream and downstream from blasting, which can be integral to the effectiveness of an overall solution. Examples include geological and geotechnical data, mine plans and field measurements, all of which can enhance blast precision.

Miners can then track drill and blast information, identify trends and learn from the data. The insights gathered can be applied to strategies that identify operational improvements across sites, operations and an entire organisation.

This scalable approach is a critical enabler for miners. Standardisation of software providers reduces the IT overhead by streamlining the number of different vendors and applications that need to track, maintain and roll out; and corporatisation of software minimises interruption arising from staff or shift turnover. Mining tech providers, who use their knowledge to build workflows, can further increase productivity. The ideal scenario would see an organisation setting up and saving custom workflows for critical processes to ensure reliable, robust outcomes.

A drill and blast solution needs to handle various challenges regardless of the geology, commodity type, engineering expertise, technology footprint, drill and blast processes, and business drivers. An integrated drill and blast reconciliation system can also help realise several benefits.

Benefits of an integrated solution

According to Maptek, sites using its BlastLogic system have reported benefits including increased coal recovery, reduced drill and blast expenditure, and improved digger and crusher productivity. What follows are a few case studies which explain these benefits.

Meet safety and production KPIs

Evidence-based information is critical for solving drill and blast issues. Operations can meet KPIs for increased safety and reduced vibration and noise through advanced timing controls and blast modelling. Reducing variation in drill and blast leads to more consistent downstream outcomes, with flow-on effects for achieving safety and production targets. This is good for the operation’s business performance as well as satisfying external stakeholders.

Support for electronic tie-up delivers finer timing control and reduces misfire potential, increasing safety and reducing excessive vibration and noise. Being able to make quick and easy hole-to-hole and row-to-row changes to account for actual drilling, charging and stemming positions ensures that fragmentation meets KPIs and has the potential to increase safety.

Quality control logging is an essential feature that helps manage risk, improving safety through assessing hole stability and reviewing explosive products used. Better blast design promotes confidence in the stability of steep walls. More ore can be recovered, and risks associated with structural integrity can be mitigated.

Simultaneous monitoring of hole quality in the office and the field limits the operational expense and potential danger of sending drill rigs back to re-drill holes, adding to the site safety scorecard.

Eliminate inefficiencies

Take the example of a large gold mine in Western Australia, which requires vibration control to manage risk. Configuring advanced charge rules allows calculation of maximum instantaneous charge for every hole relevant to multiple monitoring points. This is fundamental for controlling safety of adjacent underground operations. Vibration modelling is also used to check and validate blast designs, incorporating calibrated measurements from previous blasts.

With drill and blast design, tracking, and analysis managed in a single system inefficiencies are clearly identified and eliminated. Routine tasks can be simplified and accelerated through universal access to real-time data.

This in turn allows operations to rapidly identify deviations at critical stages of the drill and blast process, devising strategies to eliminate them and thereby improve production. Blast performance factors, reconciliation to design, production reporting and inventory management allow outcomes to be recorded and tracked.

Advanced blast designs, which account for site geology, ensure blasted material is easy to dig and matches mill specifications. This is good for upstream and downstream processes. Field knowledge is efficiently fed back to designers in the office, and activity tracking allows for quick communication with suppliers to streamline ordering of explosive materials.

It is highly unlikely a standalone application will feature the advanced reporting that connects drill and blast outcomes with wider organisation goals. Blast accuracy and management systems that integrate drillhole status with the mine system allow the data to be used to track and control reconciliation of short-term plans. Explosive inventory management data can be connected to systems used by procurement teams to monitor stock levels.

Integration for operational improvement

In another case, a large South American copper mine realised efficiency gains of 60% in key processes by reducing the divergence from drill and blast plans and identifying areas where money was being wasted. Since implementing an integrated blast management system, the site has improved operations by more than $100 000 per month in nominal overdrilling.

Blast-by-blast analytics comparing blasts across the mine allows correlation of design, execution and results. By integrating it with survey and mine planning systems, the entire operation can benefit from streamlining processes and tighter connections. Common access to centrally stored and managed data allows different teams and departments to focus on planning, compliance and improvement strategies. Management benefits from a more rigorous, proactive approach to managing risk and controlling costs, two critical factors that influence operational performance.

Synchronising field and office data

A large iron ore mine is now able to optimise fragmentation to ensure blasted material is easy to dig and meets crusher specifications. Correlation of rock type, drill penetration rates and powder factor result in blast designs that match geology. This allows for informed decisions to be taken, integrating single process improvements into a holistic mine-to-mill blasting approach.

A system that synchronises field and office data into an accurate, real-time, single source drill and blast repository is an ideal way to improve operational performance. Immediate access to data translates to improving drill and blast operations on the go, saving time, energy and money. Engineers and supervisors can pre-empt risk, productivity and cost issues before they impact the bottom line.

Informed decisions can only be made by drawing on all of the data at hand. Using the real-time advantages of technology avoids the fundamental issue experienced with systems where data cannot be provided in time to be of use.

Operations can gain a better understanding of blast performance when they can model and view blast designs and track compliance in 3D. Seeing live discrepancies between performance and design in drill and blast data facilitates quick reaction and resolution.

Streamlining the system

The mining engineer at an open pit operation creates a blast pattern given certain information about the pit, rock types, structures, explosive products and the intended design. Drill operators and blast crews build, load and fire the pattern. When discrepancies between design and as-built occur, adapting or validating the design is cumbersome, with manual survey of the holes causing delays.

Collecting data from various sources, including major drill navigation systems, helps solve this. Managers and pit supervisors get the data instantly, validate it and move forward. Integration with field tablets means measuring, backfill and charge data is all stored and updated in real-time.

Broader benefits

The benefits of a quality drill and blast solution can extend across operations and industry: better execution of better designs translates to more efficient production and an increased likelihood that operations will meet safety and production targets. Modelling blast performance and vibration leads to better outcomes for mining operations and the environment, as well as the communities in which they operate. Repeatable, reliable results also play a part in maintaining shareholder confidence and share values.

Continuous analysis of results is a key factor in identifying and achieving continuous improvement. Optimising blasts, sharing results, comparing multiple designs and simulating vibration, overpressure and fragmentation are important components of a more stringent approach to drill and blast.

Compliance to design reports are typically used as lead indicators and can be used to track performance over time. These reports also allow management to monitor the rate of improvement, and address gaps to drive more consistent and sustained alignment to blast design.

Conclusion

Operations must be agile to adapt to changing business conditions. Changes in the technical mine landscape add complexity to drill and blast, which must be overcome. Collecting and maintaining accurate up-to-the-minute data during drill and blast requires connected solutions and integration between processes.

Accurate, reliable data fosters confident decision making around upstream and downstream processes to drive repeatable, consistent drill and blast outcomes. Instant capture, analysis and data sharing at critical stages in the drill and blast process must be supported by immediate access to that data for effective decision making.

Mechanisms for managing the drill and blast process should allow operations to customise the factors used to measure and monitor blast performance. Engineers should be able to quickly relate performance such as dig rates, measured vibration, overpressure, blast movement, fragmentation or crusher throughput back to the blast design and how accurately it is executed. This insight enables them to consider which aspects to finetune to drive continuous improvement.

Bringing together distributed data streamlines reporting. Blast summary reports, drilling statistics, charge placement, field measurement and videos close the design and performance loop. Importantly, operations can trust the integrity of their data. Cloud and on-premise computing provides flexibility to implement a solution at scale with minimal communications infrastructure.

When operations are in control of the information relating to all of the tasks involved with the drill and blast process they have the necessary facts to make the best decisions. Deriving calculations and data from the single source of truth eliminates inconsistencies or discrepancies in reported metrics. Value-in-use decisions can then be considered by all stakeholders to advance improvements in blast design and process.